In late 2009, The Octopus Project took time off from touring to write new material and tinker with electronics. In order to achieve their vision for a deeper, more enveloping sonic experience, they needed more than the standard two-channel stereo audio and single projection, and decided to arrange eight speakers in a circle surrounding the audience, who in turn surrounded the band at the center. Overhead were eight synchronized video projections. The performance required an integrated eight-channel audio and eight-channel video system (built by the band themselves), hence the term hexadecagon, the geometrical name for a sixteen-sided object--in this case, a sixteen-sided audiovisual panorama. USA Today ranked the performance one of its top five shows of SXSW.